Attorney Octavia Osborne's grandmother is part of a group of seniors in a small community outside Seattle. They built a senior center on land they didn't own, but on which they had a 99 year lease. When the owner died, the heir raised their rent exorbitantly, hoping that they wouldn't be able to pay it and would have to vacate the land and improvements. He has plans for a new luxury condominium complex and to make their small town into Seattle's latest bedroom community.

To help him in his legal battle to remove the seniors from the land, he has Brett Merlin. Known in legal circles as The Magician, Merlin is someting of a law-god, famous for winning huge cases for huge corporations. So why his he in this small down working for this small-fry developer who's also really a dick?

Whatever the reason, Octavia knows she's got her legal work cut out for her. She has to do whatever she can to stop the condo project, even if her methods might be less than legal and get her disbarred.

And, since this is Intrigue, mysterious things happen, people get hurt, then someone dies, people are suspected...

I'm afraid a lot of this book was pretty predictable, and there were some "what are you, blind?" comments from me as the characters stumbled around interviewing each other and trying to find out who was behind stuff.

But other than that, it was decent reading. There was a little overplay of the "heart" angle, and a little underplay of what made Brett Brett, but I liked Octavia and I often don't like heroines, so that was good. Except that she wore capes and had a furry swinging bed. What's up with that? ( )